12/18/12

An Open Letter to the Media Hounds

(Due to the horrific... Mindless... Devastating... heartbreaking... OK! Clearly I am still having trouble. I cannot write my normal post because I am still so sick. So I am going to do what I do best when I am overwhelmed: rant and misdirect anger. What can I say, it makes me feel better, and right now, I want to feel better.)

This morning when I turned on the TV to catch up on the news of the day, I found three news anchors sitting on directors chairs in front of a local church in Newtown CT. They were actually hosting the show from the sidewalk. Before I could finish shaking my head, the show switched over to a reporter standing in the backyard of the bastard ass evil motherfu... shooter's family home. When the reporter was finished saying the police were in the house, basically doing their job, and that she had nothing to report, she sent it over to a funeral home. That's when I changed the channel to find two other morning news programs camping out in the same locations. It was clear that Newtown, CT. had unfortunately turned into a huge media circus.

After 30-minutes of flipping back and forth between the three different morning shows, I had not seen any NEW news about the horrific event that took place last Friday, nor did I see any other news going on in the rest of the world. The reporters kept carrying on about the shooter's parents, their divorce ten years prior and his mother's love of guns. Really? This is what you call important breaking news?

I turned off the TV and decided I needed to write an open letter to the Media Hounds of the world...

Media Hounds:

I understand that it is your job to provide your viewers with the latest breaking news, however I am sick of you hounding the shit out of people, digging up the most ridiculous information to create twists and turns to keep viewers interested, and most of all, crossing the damn line into unforgivable behavior to produce a good show. I'm thoroughly disgusted! Tell me, how exactly do you sleep at night. Does Lucifer make a nice bed for you in his den?

The first 30 minutes after the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting you clogged the news waves with so many false reports, I'm still not sure what is true. And now, to add insult to injury, you are carrying on about pointless information trying to, "make sense of what was going through the shooter's mind." Are you kidding me? Make sense of this mindless massacre? There is no way to find solace in that man's thoughts or upbringing! There is no way to make this ok. NO WAY! The shooter was jacked up, clearly very ill and all together so far past fucked up, who cares what his mother did, or his life leading up to the shooting. You can report on this for forever and a day, still nothing you come up with will help these families, or bring solace to the minds and hearts of your viewers.

I know this is your normal mode of operation. I also know there are people out there who enjoy watching you for 80 hours straight. But come on, surely there is another way to spend your time and money to get the story out. Is it really necessary that you hound this grieving town and film each and every funeral? And how dare you chase down shattered family members to get a statement! Are you that starved for news or is it just for ratings? Seriously, stand down you rabid mutt and give these people space and time to grieve!

Here is an idea: Get up off your ass, take your directors chair to Capitol Hill in Washington and stake out there for a week. Ask the powers that be how are they are going to work to stop these all too frequent mass shootings from continuing to happen. Ask them what their plan is for making our child's school a safe place again. If you used your insane amount of man power and resources to help the situation, rather that beat the hell out of it, then maybe you would have a story on your hands that was worthy of being called good reporting.

Sincerely,

April

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Two confused parents=One amused baby Hopelessly we are trying raise a baby who is clearly smarter than both of us. April is an award-winning writer, blogger and proud debut novelist - The Devlyn Disguise. Her work has been published in over ten countries and four languages. From books to newspapers, to print/online magazines and everything in between, you can find her work. For more about April, Visit AprilMcCormick.com